About The Magical Gods and Goddesses of Spring
Winter used to be a lot more of a threat to people's lives before central heating and electricity came along. It was a time of year when your animals suffered, your family potentially ran out of food, and the dark, wet, nights and rotten daytime weather made life uncomfortable and difficult. No wonder so many people around the world venerated spring, creating special gods and goddesses to represent and celebrate it.
After all, what would happen if the spring didn't arrive one year? If you didn't venerate your god or goddess at the right time, in the right way, for all you knew spring would never arrive, and you'd starve. We know better now but in the old days there weren't any scientific certainties, and survival through the dark times wasn't guaranteed. If you survived winter, it was something worth celebrating.
Here are some of the world's most interesting ancient gods and goddesses of spring. It's curious to note that there are a great many goddesses of spring, but only a couple of spring gods, something that suggests spring was a lot more widely personified as female than male.
21 magical spring goddesses
1. Anna Perenna is a Roman goddess associated with the year's natural cycles, mostly celebrated on the Ides of March - in 2019 the 15th March - and the dark day when Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44BC
2. Artio is the Swiss bear Goddess. Like bears she hibernates through winter, only emerging to herald spring
3. The Finnish goddess Beiwen is a goddess of the Saami reindeer people of the Arctic, associated with plant and reindeer fertility. She and her daughter Beiwe-Neia turn the remote hills green every spring so the reindeer have enough to eat
4. Blodewedd was a Celtic spring goddess created from nine spring flowers, the wife of Llew Llaw
5. Brigit, another Celtic goddess, is celebrated at the festival of Imbolc, marking the first appearance of spring
6. Dziewanna is the Eastern European goddess of spring and farming
7. The Roman deity Flora is the goddess of flowering plants, especially fruiting plants. Her festival was called the Floralia, held in late April or early May
8. Freya is the Nordic fertility goddess of spring growth and flowers, also sometimes called Gefn
9. Hare Ke is the West African goddess of the spring rains, the rains that return the parched land to fertility
10. Hebe is the Greek goddess of spring and eternal youth
11. Ostara is the Celtic goddess of spring, fertility and rebirth. She's why we still focus on eggs and rabbits at Easter, ancient stories that were later were overlaid by Christian legends
12. The Japanese goddess Kono-Hana-Sakuya-Hime is all about springtime and cherry blossom. She's the one who makes the trees burst into bloom
13. Kore is another name for the Greek goddess Persephone, the goddess of harvest and fertility
14. Kostroma is the Russian fertility goddess, personifying spring
15. Lada is an Eastern European spring deity of spring and love
16. Libera is the Roman goddess. Accompanied by Ceres and Liber, it's her job to return fertility to the frozen landscape after winter
17. Maia is a Greek goddess of spring, symbolising the return of the sunshine
18. Olwen, the Celtic goddess of sunlight, leaves behind a trail of pure white clover wherever she goes. What a beautiful image
19. Prosepina is the Roman alternative to Persephone
20. Rafu-Sen is the Japanese goddess of plum blossom
21. Sita is the Hindu spring, farming and sea goddess
Two gods of springtime
1. Jarylo is a Slavic god of vegetation, fertility and springtime
2. The Chinese celebrate the great spring god Ba Jia Jiang
Welcome to spring 2019 - Look wonderful, feel fantastic
If you're feeling inspired by the coming season and want to celebrate the warmer, brighter weather in all its glory, treat yourself to some of our lusciously exotic and unusual spring clothing. Goddess-like good looks await you. If you're a bloke who's feeling pretty godly thanks to the glorious sunshine some of us have been enjoying in the past week, the same goes. You'll love our collection of super-cool clothes for rebellious individuals who like to look different. Happy springtime!
